The ticking did not return.
Elara stood still, her breath now a fog in the thin air. The spiral of veins beneath her feet pulsed once—then dimmed into her skin, vanishing like ink sinking into paper. The floating cube remained, humming faintly, as if it had a heartbeat of its own.
And then, it cracked.
A single, jagged fracture split its surface—too small to be structural, but deliberate. Intentional. Elara watched in silence as a soft, whisper-thin ribbon of darkness slipped from the fissure and curled into the air like smoke.
It hovered.
Waited.
Then… spoke.
> "There was a gate before the blood."
The voice was not her mother's. Nor the Codex's. It had no identity—like it had been filtered through a thousand forgotten mouths.
> "She opened it. Not for power. Not for truth. But for escape."
Elara's mind raced. "Who opened it?"
The voice pulsed again, curling around her like silk caught in wind.
> "The first Morrow. Not your mother. The original."
Elara froze.
Her family lineage—Morrow—had been tied to the Codex for at least three generations. But this… this was deeper. Older.
> "What did she escape from?"
> "Not what. Who."
The cube's surface began to peel away like petals unfolding, revealing a glimmer of black crystal at its core. Inside, she saw glimpses—not memories, but shadows:
A tower buried beneath ice, etched in red spirals.
A man with no eyes, writing symbols on the air.
A name written in a language she could almost understand… before it vanished from her mind.
Then—unexpectedly—a whisper of Veer's voice.
> "Elara. Don't listen to it. Not here."
Her eyes widened.
"Veer?" she shouted. "Where are you?"
> "Behind the third seal. I think—no, I'm not sure—Elara, something's wrong with time down here. We're not in the same now."
The cube began to hum louder. The darkness circling her tightened like a net.
> "Do not follow the voice," Veer said, barely audible now. "It lies in fragments. Just like she did."
The cube cracked a second time.
The chamber shattered.
Elara fell—not physically, but through layers of thought, like diving through forgotten dreams. Spirals flashed past her eyes. Glyphs. Mouths. Doors.
Then—
Silence.
And a table.
Elara stood now in a dim stone room. A single candle flickered on an altar. On it, a sheet of paper. Handwritten. Fresh ink.
The words read:
> Trial Four: Choose the name you will abandon.
(Only one can remain—yours or hers.)
She stared at the paper as the candle guttered.
Whose name would she erase—her mother's… or her own?